2016 William Redding Memorial Poetry Contest

The Poetry Forum

24^th Annual

William Redding Memorial Poetry Contest

     

FIRST PLACE

$100 and a Featured Reading May 2, 2016

SECOND PLACE

1-year membership in Columbus Salon monthly poetry workshop/critique

or

$50 Gift Certificate for books

                

THIRD PLACE

$25 Gift Certificate for books

Submission Guidelines:

• · Submit 3 typewritten or Word document poems.  One poem per page.
• · Maximum 50 lines per poem.
• · Surface mail entries should have name, address, phone number, and email address on back only of each poem. Send entries postmarked by March 14 to The Poetry Forum c/o 91 E. Duncan Street, Columbus OH 43202. Poems will not be returned. No SASE required.
• · Email entries to abbott4949@gmail.com as single Word document with poems as separate pages & no identifying information, with name, address, phone, and email on separate first page.
• · Previous first-place winners, Poetry Forum featured readers since January 2014, and previously published poems are ineligible.

Deadline:  March 15, 2016

The Poetry Forum thanks the following for their support: Bossy Grrl’s Pinup Joint, 90.5 WCBE-FM, our featured poets, open mic participants, audiences, and generous patrons.

Bossy Grrl's, 2598 N. High Street in Columbus

Visit our web site columbuspoetryforum.com

Information: 614/268-5006

Cleveland: A Premier Literary Destination

Poets from all over hear (or already know) about the lively Cleveland area literary scene and look forward to coming (and coming back) as soon and as often as possible.  This week is no exception, as several well-regarded out-of-state poets will be here to share their literary wares. Two of the more notable events will happen Saturday 2/27 at Mac's Backs and Sunday 2/28 at Guide to Kulchur.  So whether you're an east-sider, a west-sider, or the more adventurous sort who enjoys the best of both, you have something to look forward to. It won't be the same reading twice, but it will be supremely worth your while both times.  The visiting poets will include: 

Jason Ryberg is the author of nine books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in residence at The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and an aspiring b-movie actor. His latest collections of poems are Motel, Diner, Liquor (co-authored with John Dorsey, Jason Hardung and Seth Elkins, Spartan Press, 2014) and Beauty Parlors,Train Yards and Everything In Between (co-authored with George Wallace, David Smith and Charly Fasano, Spartan Press, 2014). He lives in Kansas City, Missouri with a rooster named Little Red and a billy goat named Giuseppe.

Shawn Pavey has delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, bagged groceries, cut meat, laid sewer pipe, bussed tables, washed dishes, roofed houses, crunched numbers, rented cars, worked in hotels, worn an apron at Kinko's, and been paid to write everything from résumés to music reviews. Currently, he earns a living as a Technical Recruiter in Mission, KS where he lives with his fiancée and three worthless but adorable cats. He is the author of Talking to Shadows (Main Street Rag Press, 2008) and Nobody Steals the Towels From a Motel 6 (2015, Spartan Press), Co-founder and former Associate Editor of The Main Street Rag Literary Journal, and a former board member and officer of The Writers Place, a Kansas City-based literary non-profit. His poems, essays, and journalism appear in a variety of national and regional publications. He's hosted poetry readings in bars, coffee shops, haunted houses, bookstores, libraries, front porches, and abandoned warehouses. A graduate of the University of North Carolina's Undergraduate Honors Creative Writing Program, he likes his Tom Waits loud, his bourbon single barrel, and his basketball Carolina Blue.

Jameson Bayles: A side effect of the military industrial complex, Jameson Bayles was born at the hospital at Forbes Field AFB just south of Topeka, KS. By the age of eighteen, Jameson had participated in a refueling mission with F-16s over the skies in South Dakota, stood atop of an active missle silo, and was the bait in a counter terrorism exercise with Air Force Special Forces at Whiteman AFB. After watching Krist Novoselic obtaining a head injury at the 1992 MTV music awards, Jameson decided to pursue the path of becoming a poet and eventually crawled into a dimly lit coffeeshop in dowtown Topeka in 1997 participating in his first open mic. Jameson Bayles is the senior editor of Asinimali Publications based in Kansas City, MO and the curator of The Cellar Poetry Series at the Weston Wine Company in Weston, MO. Jameson has been published in numerous literary journals and magazines and currently, his work can be found in three books. “The Cataman Years”, published by Mistop Publications, “The Artistic Muses” published by True Color Press and the collaborative reader "A Case For Ascension" by Asinimali Publications. Jameson resides in Kansas City, Missouri and can be reached at jamesonbayles@gmail.com.

And they will be joined by two Cleveland favorites:

Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio poetry scene and regional reading circuit. Her poems have appeared in Great Lakes Review, Slipstream, Rosebud, and many others; upcoming publications include Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Dirty Chai, and The Stars Look Very Different Today: A David Bowie Tribute (Poems-For-All). Her poem "Disco" was chosen to be printed on the 2015 Youngstown Summer Festival of the Arts tote bags and on Lit Youngstown tee shirts. In 2011 she founded NightBallet Press, and in September 2015 produced BeatStreet Cleveland as part of the International Beat Poetry Festival. She lives in Elyria with husband James and dog-sons Bodhisattva and Michel-Angelo. Find her at www.dianneborsenik.com.

John Burroughs was born in West Virginia, raised in Elyria, Ohio, and now lives and works in Cleveland. Along the way, he won the first poetry competition he entered as a high school student, served for several years as playwright-in-residence at Marion Correctional Institution, became a number one blogger on MySpace, won his first-ever poetry slam in his 40s, has hosted several esteemed reading series, and co-founded the annual Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest. John's poetry volumes include Beat Attitude [2015, NightBallet Press], It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change [2013, The Poet's Haven], The Eater of the Absurd [2012, NightBallet], Barry Merry Baloney [2012, Spare Change Press] and the collaborative book Oct Tongue -1 (with Weems, Swain, Smith, Lady, Chernin and Brightman). Since 2008, Burroughs has run Crisis Chronicles Press, publishing fine indie writers from around the world.

So please join us this weekend and give our visiting artists a warm Cleveland welcome!

February 27th at 7 pm - KC & CLE: A Case for Ascension at Mac's Backs
Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry
1820 Coventry Road
Cleveland, Heights, Ohio
(216) 321-2665

February 28th at 7 pm - Guide to Kulchur Red Room Reading Series
Guide to Kulchur: Text, Art & News
5900 Detroit Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio
(216) 314-4644

The Kozo Reading Series at the Morgan

Cleveland author Christopher Bowen and the folks at The Morgan Conservatory have set up a four event reading series for this year at the eastside facility.



More information, as well as the availability of slots for an April 8th reading, can be found at the event's webpage here.

Political Poetry - Trump and Palin

Woody Guthrie’s landlord was none other than Donald Trump’s dad! Their relationship made for some interesting lyrics, reports The New Republic. “Guthrie lived for two years in a Brooklyn apartment the elder Trump owned, but grew upset at the racist policies that the real estate developer used to exclude blacks from his property.”

Writing in Raw Story, [scholar Will] Kaufman quotes some song lyrics Guthrie wrote to denounce “old man Trump”:

I suppose

Old Man Trump knows

Just how much

Racial Hate

he stirred up

In the bloodpot of human hearts

When he drawed

That color line

Here at his

Eighteen hundred family project

As Kaufman notes, both Fred Trump and his son would be investigated by the government for allegedly racist leasing practices.

Gawker has more from Kaufman himself:

In 1979, 12 years after Guthrie had succumbed to the death sentence of Huntington’s Disease, Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett published a two-part exposé about Fred and Donald Trump’s real estate empire.

Barrett devoted substantial attention to the cases brought against the Trumps in 1973 and 1978 by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. A major charge was that “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents” had “created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity.” The most damning evidence had come from Trump’s own employees. As Barrett summarizes:

According to court records, four superintendents or rental agents confirmed that applications sent to the central [Trump] office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race. Three doormen were told to discourage blacks who came seeking apartments when the manager was out, either by claiming no vacancies or hiking up the rents. A super said he was instructed to send black applicants to the central office but to accept white applications on site. Another rental agent said that Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to blacks. Further, the agent said Trump wanted “to decrease the number of black tenants” already in the development “by encouraging them to locate housing elsewhere.”
Guthrie had written that white supremacists like the Trumps were “way ahead of God” because

God dont know much about any color lines.

Guthrie hardly meant this as a compliment. But the Trumps – father and son alike – might well have been arrogant enough to see it as one. After all, if you find yourself “way ahead of God” in any kind of a race, then what else must God be except, well, “a loser”? And we know what Donald Trump thinks about losers.

One thing is certain: Woody Guthrie had no time for “Old Man Trump.”

 

Palin's Song: Her Speech Endorsing Trump, Compressed Into Short Poems

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jedediah-purdy/palins-song-her-speech-en_b_9024152.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/27/sarah-palin-channels-her-inner-slam-poet/

• http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/19/sarah_palin_s_rambling_donald_trump_endorsement_was_post_apocalyptic_poetry.html

• http://www.utne.com/arts/sarah-palins-poetry.aspx

• Sarah Palin's Poetry

 The Soviet artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan hoped to subvert his government by using its own language against it in his art: “He made works on paper in which appropriated texts and images were combined and layered using transfer techniques, some utilizing official notices by Soviet administrators—the terse, usually handwritten flyers that punctuated the everyday life of Soviet citizens with warnings, admonitions, and exhortations. One such announcement scribbled on a page torn out of a logbook reads: ‘Comrade residents! On Monday the 19th there won’t be any cold or hot water. We ask you to close the taps and shut off the heating system.

We’ve known for a while that fairy tales are old, but only now have we discovered that they’re in fact really, really, really old—an important distinction. Stories like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rumpelstiltskin” originated thousands of years ago, researchers suggest, in “prehistoric times, with one tale originating from the bronze age”: “Using techniques normally employed by biologists, they studied common links between 275 Indo-European fairy tales from the world and found some have roots that are far older than previously known, and ‘long before the emergence of the literary record.’ ”

A Whitman Sampler - Poetry Contest and Performance

The Singers' Club of Cleveland is a 123-year-old men's chorus.  Their concert in March ("A Whitman Sampler") will feature songs inspired by American poetry. Their guest performing group for that concert will be Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word.

In conjunction with that concert, The Singers' Club is sponsoring a poetry contest with $250 cash prizes for the winners and a $100 prize for the best submission from Cuyahoga County.

For more about the Singers, please visit www.singersclub.org.

Things Not to Do at a Poetry Reading--

Diane Borsenik reads at Best Cleveland Poem (photo by Tim Misny)

• Daniel Nester lists 20 Things Not to Do at an Open Poetry Reading

The Bells of Christmas Day--

                  Christmas Bells

    I heard the bells on Christmas Day
    Their old, familiar carols play,
        And wild and sweet
        The words repeat
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And thought how, as the day had come,
    The belfries of all Christendom

       Had rolled along
       The unbroken song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    Till ringing, singing on its way,
    The world revolved from night to day,
        A voice, a chime,

       A chant sublime

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    Then from each black, accursed mouth
    The cannon thundered in the South,
        And with the sound
        The carols drowned
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    It was as if an earthquake rent
    The hearth-stones of a continent,
        And made forlorn
        The households born
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And in despair I bowed my head;
    "There is no peace on earth," I said;
        "For hate is strong,
        And mocks the song
    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

    Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
    "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
        The Wrong shall fail,
        The Right prevail,
    With peace on earth, good-will to men."

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1864

---

Longfellow wrote "Christmas Bells" in the winter of the third year of the Civil War, shortly after receiving news that his son Charles Appleton had been critically wounded during the the Mine Run Campaign.
I wish you all to have a peaceful Christmas, or whatever holiday you chose to celebrate.

Reasons not to date a poet--

• 50 Reasons Not to Date a Poet
• Why Dating a Poet is the Best Thing...

Winter City

"Eyeball," by Smith

Latest issue of Lady Smith's 'zine of art and poetry, the City, is now out for solstice 2015:

• The City: Winter 2015

And, join her for the 10th equinox/solstice open mic Winter 2015 Solstice poetry reading tomorrow Dec 19, 2015 from 11am – 12:30pm

Cleveland Metroparks Canal Way Center, 4524 E 49th St, Cleveland, Ohio 44125

• Open mic Winter 2015 Solstice Poetry Reading

A Poet Laureate for Ohio

The State of Ohio just named its first poet laureate: Amit Majmudar, of Dublin, Ohio
Majmudar, who is a poet and a physician, grew up in the Cleveland area. He earned a BS at the University of Akron and an MD at Northeast Ohio Medical University. His poems have appeared in many places, including the New Yorker, The Antioch Review, Poetry, The Norton Introduction to Literature, and The Best of the Best American Poetry.
He's the author of two collections of poetry, 0′, 0′ in 2009 and Heaven and Earth in 2011, and his new collection Dothead will appear from Alfred A. Knopf in March, 2016.

• Check out some of his poems
• and more

Congrats to Amit Majudar!

Links:

• Greater Cleveland native Amit Majmudar named as Ohio's first poet laureate by Gov. John Kasich, Cleveland.com
• Dublin physician named first Ohio poet laureate, Columbus Dispatch
• Ohio's 1st poet laureate to build bridges among art forms, WHIO
• U of Akron grad named Ohio's first poet laureate, WKYC
• Amit Majmudar web page

Great Bookstores in Cleveland

Cleveland.com features 13 Great Independent Bookstores in Cleveland (and surroundings).
For bonus points, visit them all!

Places to Submit - December 2015

Welcome to Literistic for December!
Yaddo Residency (fees)poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 1
Hambidge Residency (fees). Include an applicant Statement/Proposal, bio, resume, and up to 30 pages of a novel, play, short story or other written work. Poets submit 5 to 8 poems or appropriate excerpts from longer works. For writers who work in languages other than English, submit both original language examples and English translations. poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 15
Jentel Artist Residency ($, fees). Writers over 25 residing in the United States and US citizens abroad are eligible. Maximum 20 pages for writing sample. Poets send 10 pages of poetry. poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 15
Banff Centre Writing Studio (fees). The Writing Studio is structured to provide an extended period of uninterrupted writing time, one-on-one editorial assistance from experienced writers/editors, and an opportunity to engage with a community of working writers. poetry, fiction    canada	January 20

Contests
Prism Short Fiction Contest ($, fees). Max. word count: 6,000.fiction    canada	January 15
Prism Poetry Contest ($, fees). Send up to three poems per entry. poetry    canada	January 15
Meridian Editors’ Prize in Fiction ($, fees). Fiction writers may submit one story of 10,000 words or fewer in each submission. fiction    united states	January 15
Discovery/Boston Review 2016 Poetry Contest ($, fees). Open to poets who have not published a full-length poetry collection. Submissions must be no longer than ten pages, typed. At least two of the poems must be a page or shorter. Poems that have been or will be published in periodicals or anthologies may be submitted; however, at least two of the submitted poems must be unpublished as of April 2016. poetry    united states	January 25
The Iowa Review Awards ($, fees). Opens Jan. 1. Submit up to 25 pages of prose (double-spaced) or 10 pages of poetry (one poem or several, but no more than one poem per page).poetry, fiction    united states	January 31
The Lamar York Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction ($, fees). Send one short story or essay of up to 5,000 words, double-spaced. No theoretical, scholarly, or critical essays will be considered, but all other approaches and topics are welcome.fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 31
A Room of Her Own Foundation's Orlando Prizes ($, fees). A submission consists of a single work (poem, flash fiction piece, short story, or essay). Poetry:  36 lines, Flash Fiction:  500 words, Short Fiction:  1500 words, Creative Nonfiction: 1500 words. Designed to support women writers in a variety of genres and stages of professional and creative development. poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 31
The Disquiet Prize ($, fees). For poetry: No more than SIX poems per entry, up to 10 pages total. For fiction: ONE short story or novel excerpt, maximum 25 (double-spaced) pages per entry. For non fiction: ONE piece of non fiction, maximum 25 (double-spaced) pages per entry.poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 31

Publications
Foliopoetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 4
Sand Journalpoetry, fiction, non-fiction    international	January 15
Proximity Magazine. Theme issue: "Play." We are interested in reading nonfiction stories about whimsy and a wandering body or mind, the blessedly unusual act of going "unplugged," and/or any activity that offers the reader a glimpse into the abandonment of stress and responsibility in search of joy, freedom, creativity and reprieve. non-fiction    canada	January 15
Ploughshares ($, fees). Fiction and nonfiction: Less than 6,000 words. Excerpts of longer works are welcome if self-contained. Poetry: Submit 1-5 pages at a time. poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 15
Nashville Review ($). We welcome flash fiction, short stories, and novel excerpts of up to 8,000 words. Between two and five poems may be submitted at a time. We’re open to anything: memoir excerpts, essays, imaginative meditations. Send us up to 8,000 words. Submissions open Jan. 1 poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 31
The Capilano Review ($). For poetry submissions, send up to 8 pages; for fiction, a maximum of 5,000 words.poetry, fiction    canada	January 31
Magma Poetry. Theme issue: Revolution. poems that respond to the idea of revolution in the here and now. We’d be delighted to receive poems in which the revolutionary intervenes in daily life whether politically as in Heaney’s The Toome Road or even A Constable Calls; or personally as in Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me”, Frost’s The Road Not Taken, Bishop’s Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore or Angelou’s Personally Woman; or stylistically as in Paul Stephenson’s poem in Magma 58 where all 25 lines end perfectly logically with “beetroot”. poetry    britain	January 31
Fence. Submit no more than 5 poems at any one time, and up to 25 pages of fiction or other prose. poetry, fiction, non-fiction    united states	January 31
0s&1s Reads. Looking for more instalments of our Writers on Mental Health series in the form of a) essays of any shape and size, or b) writers willing to be interviewed. Get in touch: editor [at] 0s-1s [dot] com.non-fiction    canada